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Cheat Death Additional Information

This is the first time we are seeing Rogue Secrets in Hearthstone. Kobolds and Catacombs will feature three of them, however, in the next set there are new future plans to add more.

Rogue Secret Trigger Art

Each class has unique art when a secret is triggered, this is how Rogue’s will look:

Cheat Death Card Review

And suddenly – Rogue secrets! That has it’s own implications for what it could mean about where the game is headed and how Team 5 has gotten a bit more open to breaking some of their ground rules, but we are here to talk about Cheat Death specifically. So, obviously, looking at the effect itself, we immediately draw the parallel with Shadowstep, which is an excellent card in today’s meta, one of the MVPs of the infamous Keleseth Rogue deck. Now, despite how good it is currently, just because there are plenty of good targets to bounce, we have to keep in mind that historically, Shadowstep has not seen too much play in Rogue since Leeroy Jenkins got nerfed and Rogue decks didn’t rely as much on Shadowstepping him as a primary win condition. In fact, ever since the early days of the game the card has been slightly out of favour, from Oil to Jade and the new builds of Miracle Rogue. That said, it is a staple of the class and for good reason, since Rogue love their 0-cost spells, especially when that can buyback a powerful Battlecry effect.

Enter Cheat Death and the context around the effect changes completely. Although it negates the downside of Shadowstep, as in you can play it preemptively without your target having to already be on the battlefield, you are paying a lot more mana for essentially the same effect. However, I would argue that it is worth it. Not in tempo-centric decks, of course, which can’t afford to play a card that is essentially anti-tempo, but it might make it’s way into the classic Miracle Rogue as a safety net for your valuable minions, only to power up even more later in the game when they have the discount. Whether or not that’s something those decks will be looking to do is a different thing, but the ability to set up plays for the future and have reliable consistency is very valuable.

One critical fact to take into consideration is that there are only going to be three Rogue secrets this expansion and more are unlikely to come. This means that unlike other classes, they won’t actually be… secret. Now, of course, in Constructed formats, most often secrets are already fairly well known, because only a few are better than the rest and decklists tend to be common knowledge, especially if you go higher up the ladder. In Rogue this exact effect will be exacerbated even further, so the real question to ask is this: Is the effect something you need at a price point you are willing to pay, given that the opponent is very likely to know exactly what your secret is? I think the answer in the case of Cheat Death is a Yes, given that you want this effect.

Card Review by Chimbarozo

Cheat Death Decks

These are the most recent decks that have featured Cheat Death in the last year.

I LOVE this card! More of these please, bring back quest mage!!!!! Bring back Mill Rogue!!! Kill the f****** prince Rogue.
Rogue was my favorite class but now everyone is playing it just because it’s broken, sad 🙁

Blizzard now we need Mysterious Challenger like card but something like 4/4 cost 4 mana, for more tempo and to avoid pesky priests!!! Ofc Epic rarity! And rogue great again. No need for this trashy keleseth!

Need a lot more secrets for this to be good, right now, super easy to play around. This takes up a lot of cards slots for rogue this expac. I don’t think it’ll be good now, but in the future, need a few in classic to really make a difference

they mentioned there was a 3rd secret… the also said each secret borrow (steals) an element from another classes secret.. so this is get away kodo tweaked.. the other is misdirection tweaked.. so i am guessing the next one will borrow from from mage….

The secret would be fairly obvious and your opponent could just then ignore the Coldlight – since secrets trigger on your opponent’s turn you couldn’t just run your Coldlight into something to kill it and get it back in your hand… however, you _could_ play Ancient Brewmaster instead…

I still play Wild Mill Rogue occasionally – I think I might have to try a Standard version once K&C is released.

So this card is pretty good, but not as a card slot in your deck, perhaps in some super aggressive rogue that tries to prep this out with good early minions. But why would you play that over keleseth tempo rogue? This card costs 2 so it can’t be included in those decks. Won’t see play but if rogue one day gets a card like hydrologist, expect this one to pop up very often (as a discovery that is)

There are some really strong aggro cards you would like to see with this, like leeroy, cobalt scalebane or southsea captain. its kind of a refill and resilience towards boardclears, and aggro decks could run this with prep though you are probably right it would fit control more. My bad.

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